The Cigar Smoke after a Patrol - Sergio Wallace (part 2 of 2)

Part 2 with Sergio Wallace goes on with the everyday reality of war, from heat and mud rain to the little “keep your head together” routines. He gives a deep look at what it means to accept death at 19, come home changed, and try to lead younger Marines with respect while carrying pride, shame, and unanswered “why me” questions. 

• extreme heat and the strange mud rain during sandstorms 
• downtime survival through bootleg DVDs, music, trash talk, and dark humor 
• cigars as a post-patrol ritual 
• VIP visits, reporters, and junior Marines lack of intel briefs
• base-to-base contrasts
• Lioness missions, loneliness, and the social fallout
• movement-to-contact, up-armored Humvees, night ops
• drawdown mindset, vigilance, and the oddly comforting acceptance of mortality 
• coming home and family noticing subtle changes 
• leadership lessons about teaching and treating Marines like people 
• leaving the Corps for family, and the long shadow of pride, shame, and moral injury 

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Transcript

Arrival And Desert Heat

SPEAKER_06 0:06

This is platoon. Well, anything going into and now where are you from originally?

SPEAKER_00 0:15

You from Chicago? Originally I'm from Colorado Springs, Colorado.

SPEAKER_06 0:20

Nice and cold.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 0:23

So what'd you think going into the summer?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Uh I had never been so hot in my life. Yeah. I'm not a fan of being hot. I like it cold. Um surprisingly enough, when we first got there, there were a couple of you know cold mornings and cold nights.

SPEAKER_05 0:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Um the rain that fell during a sandstorm was also a new one since the rain turned to mud, and it was just a set you know, drops of mud covering everything. That was a new one for me. Um but one of my more specific memories still. Yeah, that's that only happened one time, and uh that was definitely something I'd never forget. Um but yeah, I don't think even to this day, when I get hot and sweaty, it brings back like that the pins and needles you get during the deployment when you're when it feels like uh you got stinging all up and down your back.

SPEAKER_06 1:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

I still get that every now and then. It drives me nuts.

SPEAKER_06 1:34

What'd you do to keep cool?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Oh uh just hydrated. I mean, uh the ACs, the little ACs that we had in those little hooches.

SPEAKER_05 1:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Um, they didn't work all the time, but that was about the best we could do.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

Yeah. Speaking of the hooches, what did uh how did you spend uh your uh downtime? What did you do to keep your mind off of other things?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

I uh I got a DVD player and some speakers from the Hodges and uh those bootleg DVDs that they had, and I used the 550 cord and duct tape, and I suspended the DVD player and the speakers up on my rack, and then everybody would just come over and sit

Downtime With Movies And Music

SPEAKER_00 2:24

on my rack and we'd watch a movie.

SPEAKER_06 2:28

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

That was about it.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

Listen to the case. Were you uh were you a smoker? Were you out in the smoke bed a lot?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

No, I didn't smoke. Um, but my mother did send me a care package that had a box of like 200 Swisher Sweets cigars in them.

SPEAKER_06 2:49

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

So what we started doing was anytime we would make it back from a patrol safe, you know, we'd all light one up and have a little celebratory

Cigars After Safe Patrols

SPEAKER_00 2:58

at the end of the day. But uh I never could uh get on to the cigarette. Who's who's we? Oh. So my truck teams, me, Gloy. Um Alderetti was in a different platoon, but he was also one of our friends that we hung out with.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Uh he ended up and he came over.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yeah, he has uh we had that uh had to cross-train him because he was a he was a tow gunner originally, right?

SPEAKER_06 3:27

Correct, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Yeah, yeah. Um, so me, him, and Gloy, sometimes Escalante. Um yeah, we just puff on those little cigars in the back and hope not to get mortared. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

You guys get into any uh any other antics in the hooch.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

I mean, other than taking dumb pictures with K-bars, you know, because you're bored, there's always somebody pointing a K-bar at somebody or you know, sword fighting or whatever, but uh no. I mean, if it wasn't movies, music, or just trash talking, you know, that's really all we could do. I was probably one of the only mortarmen that never learned how to play spades. So whenever that was going down, I was always somewhere in the corner doing something else.

SPEAKER_06 4:22

Not even sure you're a real mortarman at this point, man.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

I know qualify. I've always been horrible at cards, so I never wanted to I'm I don't have a brain for numbers either.

SPEAKER_06 4:33

So you guys have to have anybody stitched up from a K-bar fight?

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Nope, luckily.

SPEAKER_06 4:40

That's good. We had two, so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, I believe it. Those things were sharp out the box.

SPEAKER_06 4:47

Yeah, stupid dumb marines playing with knives all the time.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Uh oh, we did have some machete fights, those machetes they gave us to chop through dense brush or whatever. So that was fun.

SPEAKER_06 5:02

Which which really I I mean, I don't know that we ever used them out in the field, but we did use them to chop some of the shit away at the river.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yep. Used it to do some uh area beautification whenever some high-ranking person was coming around. Right. Gotta make sure

Boredom Antics With Blades

SPEAKER_00 5:20

the lawn looks good and in this enemy territory.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

I remember I took a oh man, I forgot about this, but uh, we took a I was part of uh uh we when we uh remember when they thought there were gonna be Chechi and um divers that were gonna cross over?

SPEAKER_04 5:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

They were gonna attack our base, and so we had to set up a separate uh guard post at the far end. And uh we had a like I remember I I went up there with a machete and a couple other a couple guys went up there. We cleared out an area, and so I forgot, I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_06 5:57

That's right. Yep, they were gonna use little uh scuba fins and somehow swim upstream of the Euphrates and and get to us.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Yeah. Some of the stuff they came up with is you know, but as far as uh, you know, like you were mentioning earlier the command picture, I think, is uh, you know, first deployment boot, so to speak. Uh I wasn't privy to a lot of the big picture information. So a lot of it for me was just, you know, go where you're told, do what you're told. Don't shoot anybody that, you know, isn't supposed to be shot.

SPEAKER_06 6:40

I mean, that's the best you could hope for, to be honest. Uh at you know, as a junior Marine, and be like, and trust that your command's telling you, you know, pointing you in the right direction, at least. You uh you kind of mentioned uh guest visitors. Do you have any memories of any of our VIP guests that we had?

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Oh, yeah, when Ollie North came through, that was a that was a good time. Yeah um they did that War Stories little uh excerpt on us. Um he's really it. I mean, um I can't think of anyone

VIP Visits And Limited Intel

SPEAKER_00 7:20

else that may have come by. We didn't get any like celebrity visitors or anything like that.

SPEAKER_06 7:26

No, no, we definitely I mean we were in a hot celebrity. Celebrities, yeah. We weren't gonna get the I mean Ollie North is a celebrity, but that's as celebrity as it's gonna get.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

Yeah. We had a handful of reporters that we took out and about, but no one, I mean, I could name them, but no one that sticks out.

SPEAKER_06 7:45

I mean, we had the Commandant of the Marine Corps come by. We had General Mattis come by, like some people that you know are big names as far as Marine Corps wise, but not necessarily big names for the public.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

See if I'd have known about Mad Dog Mattis showing up, you know, I'd have probably been excited about that.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

Yeah. Well, we bumped into them twice over at Blue Diamond dropping people off um over at the Chow Hall and stuff like that. I don't know if maybe you weren't maybe you weren't there. Maybe you're on trouble.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

I might have been there, but Blue Diamond for me was one of those places where we were told don't talk to anybody, like that's where all the officers and staff and COs are at, like keep your mouth shut, stay out of sight, type of shit. So um, yeah, I wasn't interacting with uh any generals for sure. Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

Not running up and getting autographs.

SPEAKER_06 8:37

No, that's hilarious. You remember any visits, any other bases that were uh memorable? Because I mean we did run to quite a few different places. I I mean, I think everybody went to at least a couple air bases, and they definitely went to Junction City.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah, I remember um I can't remember. Um I don't know if this is the right deployment. Um, there's Alta Katam and Al-Assad.

SPEAKER_06 9:03

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Um Junction City was interesting for me uh because that was the first place that I had seen

Other Bases And Women Up Front

SPEAKER_00 9:13

uh I didn't know that they brought women over to Iraq, like with us. Like I, you know, on the big basis, yeah, like that makes sense. But Junction City being right down the street from Hurricane Point, I felt was like uh, you know, pretty hostile area.

unknown 9:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

And again, as a kid, um you know, looking at all these people like, oh damn, you guys are out here too. But then you see their accommodations versus ours, and you're like, oh, why couldn't we have just all hung out over here at Junction City and you know operated out of here?

SPEAKER_06 9:47

You wouldn't have been angry enough to fight, you'd have been too comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah, that's uh that's something that uh a key point that I bring up to a lot of people when I tell them about how the Marine Corps essentially keeps its fighting men and women ready to fight, and it's by making sure they don't get comfortable and they stay hungry and tired and pissed off because you know you're not gonna want to go get into a firefight if you gotta climb out of silk sheets and put your Xbox down. So I get it.

SPEAKER_06 10:20

It's funny you mentioned the women. Um I think that was striking to a lot of people, but uh specifically historically speaking, uh, according again, according to official government uh record, that was the first place and the first time that women attached to us, to your platoon, were sent to frontline combat.

unknown 10:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 10:45

Intentionally. Now, obviously things happen, right? Convoys get ambushed and there happens to be a woman on there, but but intentionally sent to frontline combat, that was the first time.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Yeah, they were they did tell us that like it was like a new thing and you know that they were trying out. And my whole thing with that is you know, any anybody that's got the guts to slap on a flak jacket and grab a weapon, you know, I'm good with uh, you know, no matter who you are, where you come from, what you're made of, but um you know there were a lot of unseen problems that came from that too. But you know, it was just uh another thing that really you don't expect when you get over there.

SPEAKER_06 11:37

Did you did you operate with any of the lioness missions?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Yeah, um we went on a couple, um and it was just like meetings with uh the the local higher ups and then you know them coming along to be able to do certain searches and things like that. But um nothing ever happened uh when

Lioness Missions And Lonely Behavior

SPEAKER_00 12:05

we were doing security for them, at least when I was there.

SPEAKER_06 12:09

Yeah. Do you talk to them at all? Any interactions?

SPEAKER_00 12:14

No. Um one of the things I noticed that happens uh especially in a combat zone around men who haven't been around women in a long time, is when women do come around, sometimes some guys get a little get a little in their DNA, so to speak. And uh I could see that there was like people were already talking about Marines fighting over them and you know, fighting over their attention and stuff like that. And I'm like, I just don't even want to be involved in uh anything like that. So I'm not really a people person in general, so I don't seek anyone out to start a conversation. I just let the animals play in the circus, but I just hit the stand and watch.

SPEAKER_06 12:59

That's a good way to put it. And it's funny from uh their perspective, and uh we did talk to one of them uh in detail about her memories of what uh what she remembers running with with you guys with Rainmaker and Sledgehammer stuff. They weren't interested anyway, like they they had no they had no fucking interest whatsoever. Uh and so that's that's pretty funny. It's funny, it's funny to hear also from your third person perspective, like watching them like you're you're fawning over people who don't give a shit whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

And yeah, and that's what it looked like, you know, like they didn't even look like they were buying into it, but you know, I was just like, uh, you know, I guess it's war and they're lonely, so I'm I'm I didn't want to be looked at as like just another guy who's trying to talk to one of them. So even though I think it would have been cool to have a conversation, because like I said, anybody who's willing to do something like that, you know, I think it's worth talking to. Um, but in my life, especially, um, and it's been a thing as long as I can remember, uh, anybody sees me talking to a woman, they automatically assume that you know there's flirting going on or that there's ulterior motives. So usually I just avoid it altogether.

SPEAKER_06 14:21

I could see that. Well, let's see, running uh a little further down the line, there was a couple of big operations that came. Uh, there was numerous other bug hunts throughout the middle of uh the middle of the summer, especially. There was several movement to contact operations that were late July and early August. Any of that stuff ring a bell? It was times when largely we were in trail of the line

Up-Armored Humvees And Night Ops

SPEAKER_06 14:53

companies who were again flushing out the enemy into us. Any of that ring a bell? Bring any memories up? You'd have probably been the hottest you've ever been and the most dehydrated you've ever been.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Yeah, I was gonna say, I think that was right around the time they started giving us those uh M114s, I think they were called. But it was the the Humvees that actually had like enclosed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, um, correct. So I think that was the first time that I actually experienced like feeling AC while we're driving around. I was like, you know, uh feeling a little bit more protected. Uh, because before we were riding around in highbacks sitting on water coolers, you know, just out in the open air. So um that was that's what I remember the most is just feeling a little bit, you know, more I guess because yes, comfortable maybe, but I felt like I don't know, we had like a better chance um, you know, rolling around in vehicles like that that were designed for better protection. Um but yeah, you know, once you step out of them, it's all the same. Um but yeah, I just remember in and out of buildings, up and down stairs, across fields, um doing night ops, stepping in holes, almost breaking my leg because there's no depth perception with seven Bravo MVGs. As a we didn't do as much on the ground stuff as the line companies did, but man, um I was grateful to be uh mechanized for most of it.

SPEAKER_06 16:52

Yeah. Did you that's true? Did you know any of the guys from the line companies from like SOI or anything?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Um I knew a couple. I knew Kanega, he and I went to uh MEPS together, um Tabunga. Uh he and I were in SOY together. So there's a couple here and there. Um, but their names escape me at the moment.

SPEAKER_06 17:20

Yeah. Didn't have talking to anybody when you made made a break stomp at Snake Pit or uh were out at Combat Outpost.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Yeah, um if I saw someone that I recognized, I can't think of any names at the moment, but um there was usually always someone somewhere, you know, at one of those places that I would talk to.

SPEAKER_06 17:41

Yeah. Yeah. I remember trying to talk to a lot of people at Combat Outpost. Them dudes looked like they were getting run to death. And so I man, it was it was often a hard conversation. I I felt for him because that place looked like it was supposed to be a mechanic shop. Like I don't I don't know what it was supposed to be when they converted it to an outpost, but there wasn't much of an outpost.

SPEAKER_03 18:05

No, yeah. I had a good friend Smith out there, and he was like like we were friends and trying to have a conversation with him during the deployment was yeah, it was bad.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

It was bad, it was really bad. I can imagine that it was weird too, being you know, not that far from us. You wouldn't think it would be that drastic of an environment change, but from what how they talked about it, it really was right.

SPEAKER_06 18:31

Yeah, I I mean I didn't think Hurricane Point was great, I didn't think we weren't having some level of hardship, but it was it was a little nicer than combat outpost.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Well, we didn't have the command issues that they did, plus we weren't getting our dicks run into the dirt by walking 20 miles a day every single day. Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

So yeah, I got a good taste of that in Afghanistan. I got attached to a line platoon as a uh a morteman with the 60s. And yeah, I've never I've never walked so much in my life.

SPEAKER_06 19:12

Well, sort of coming to the end, uh any anything stand out to you on the drawdown of like kind of transitioning out?

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Um you know, it was that mixed feeling of great, we're going home. And also don't relax because you know a lot of times stuff happens, you know, as soon as you relax because you're you're getting close to a finish line.

Drawdown Vigilance And Mortality

SPEAKER_00 19:40

So just maintaining um vigilance and trying not to focus too much on going home because again, that just seemed like a good way to to not make it back is to to lose focus. So I really was you know, tight butthole all the way until the plane was in the air and we were on our way to Kuwait.

SPEAKER_05 20:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Um you know. I didn't think I I had my 19th birthday um in Ramadi, and I wasn't sure that I was gonna make it to 19, and then after that passed, I was like, well, because it was right after Savage, and then uh things started ramping up again, so I was like, well, I'm definitely not making it to 20. So I'll just you know I was just ready to go. It just seemed like better men than me were getting killed, so you know, there's nothing nothing keeping me out of that out of harm's way.

SPEAKER_06 20:51

You're not the first person to mention this, and it's a feeling I know for sure that I share, and uh Blake's mentioned it multiple times too. It's not suicide, right? You don't want to die. There's you're just accepting the fact that it's probably gonna happen, like you're seeing it way too much. I'm curious your thoughts. Was it comforting? Was it worrying? What did you think once you had sort of taken a look and look at your fate in the eye and then decided well, oddly enough, it was comforting.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Um it's once you realize that there's nothing you can actually do, it it's just kind of happened whether it's your time or not, that no amount of training or you know how good of a man you are or how devotee of to religion you are, right? Uh nothing stops those bullets and those IEDDs. Uh so once I realized that it's just if it happens, it happens. You know, it just made it easy. To not worry about it and just really kind of focus more on okay what the mission is and what do I gotta do and making sure that I'm keeping my boys around me safe.

SPEAKER_06 22:11

Yeah, did you do anything for your birthday?

SPEAKER_00 22:17

I think we smoked a cigar.

SPEAKER_06 22:19

That's good. That's a good celebration.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:22

In good company too.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Yeah. Definitely. I think uh I think the phone center, the little ATC T and T center we had might have been down. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_06 22:39

If it was after Savage, it was down for weeks, two, three weeks after Savage. Because it was down for Savage, and then the engineers got hit along with the Echo Company Highback, they got hit by that VBID on May 29th. And then uh yeah, so it would basically for all the rest of May and a good chunk of June, it was down, so we didn't call anybody.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Yep, I was gonna say my uh birthday was on the 19th. So uh yeah, the phones definitely would have been down. Um but yeah, I just yeah, like you said, it's just comfort and acceptance made things easier to deal with.

SPEAKER_06 23:37

It's a weird thing to accept your death at 19, especially on your 19th birthday. I I don't know how many people can sympathize with that point. I know many milit you know, well, I can't say many. I know some military people can understand that intimately, but probably not in the same way that you are talking about. That's uh that's a hell of a thing. When you got to the end, because that's kind of what we were talking about, and you're realizing that you might make it out, right? You again, clenched butthole all the way to the Freedom Bird. Once you started heading back to California, what'd you think?

SPEAKER_00 24:15

I just kept thinking about how lucky I was and how grateful. Um but also a little bit confused, you know, like what what did I do? Why am I on this plane going home to see my family? Like when so many others didn't, you know, what makes me special?

SPEAKER_04 24:38

What you know, um just why really right?

SPEAKER_02 24:48

That's a hard why.

SPEAKER_06 24:51

It's funny, you know, you can apply that uh the random logic to when my number's up, I'll get my ticket punched and I'm dead, but you can't do it in reverse. And I I did that too for years. Like, why why did I come back, right? Why that's not that's not an unusual feeling. But you never think about it logically, right? It was just it was just wasn't your time, man. I there's no other better reason for it. Well, you were so relatively junior to the core then. Uh you came back, you went on leave. Anything well, it sounded like you were dealing with a lot of shit on leave, too. Did you go home on leave or what'd you do?

SPEAKER_00 25:33

I did. I went home on leave. Uh the I talked to my family, and they said that the ex that cheated wanted to be there at the airport when I got there because she wanted to see me when I

Home Leave And Combat Habits

SPEAKER_00 25:46

landed. Uh, I was against the idea at first, but uh, you know, my family taught they're like, you know, she really wants to be there and support you. And I'm like, well, she could have been doing that, you know, when she was doing the other thing, but uh, you know, so I come, I get home on the airport, come down the escalator, my family's there, and she's there, and I'm you know, trying to be in a good mood, but I'm still kind of upset about it. So it was a half-like relief and some other emotions. But um one of the the things I didn't find out until later, but um shortly after I went back after our post-employment leave was over, my family was telling, you know, the other members that I wasn't the same and that uh I'm not the Sergio that they remember, and they don't know what happened, but something's wrong, something's off. And me, I I didn't think anything of it, you know. And it did cause me problems later on down the road, but did they ever relate to you what they thought was different? Well, they never told me that, you know, they were telling other people that, and then by the time I found out how they felt, it was in a courtroom, them testifying to a judge uh how dangerous I am and about all my past and everything like that. I didn't even know they felt that way.

SPEAKER_06 27:25

It's a shitty way to spring it on somebody.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:30

Did you feel different going home?

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Nope. Um the when I was driving, uh, I was, you know, swerving trash bags. And if anything looked weird on the side of the road, my grandfather would always be like, 'Why are you?' Because I would kind of stay more towards the middle of the road. Yeah, yeah, you know, and he'd be like, Why are you, you know, he's like, Why are you so far from the side? And why are you taking these corners so wide? And you know, and I would I would just be like, Well, I was driving in Iraq and trying to avoid IEDs, like, you know, so that was I do remember that him criticizing my driving.

SPEAKER_06 28:12

Yeah, yeah. Well, you move forward from there. I mean, pretty quick. A lot of us that were any kind of senior to you, we disappeared fast. Either went on to other billets, other units. I mean, that's the Marine Corps way, man. You don't stick around. If you're leaving, you're leaving. Um, I mean, me and Blake left. We we left the Marine Corps in December. Uh I mean, you were becoming senior. What did you what kind of lessons did you take forward to your junior marines? Because now you were the guy with all the

Leading Without Public Humiliation

SPEAKER_06 28:44

all the knowledge. You were the senior salty lance to go uh aggravate your junior marines.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Uh yeah, I mean, I interestingly enough, I stayed in 2-4 for almost six years.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Nice. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

I didn't get orders to another unit until uh 2009. Um, but the first thing that I implemented was to not be like the senior Lance corporals that I had interacted with when I first got there. Um, I wanted to be a do what I'm telling you to do because this is gonna help you out and make you a better Marine, as opposed to do what I'm telling you to do because I said so. Right. Um, you know, I tried to teach as opposed to just demand things. Um, and I carried that a little bit into my leadership style when later on becoming an NCO and things like that. I learned that uh communicating and uh you know, really treating, I guess, my junior Marines like human beings instead of you know underlings.

SPEAKER_06 30:16

You know, are you sure you're a mortarman? I'm not sure. I'm not I'm not sure this is the uh proper doctrine, sir.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Yeah, yeah, I know. It did not make me popular with my peers, I can tell you that. Um they did not like the fact that you know, if one of my Marines was late for formation, instead of me just ripping his ass in front of everybody, come to find out, you know, he came out in his car, you know, the battery didn't work and he had to wait for a jump, you know, like life happens. Like, don't be late again, or there's gonna be punishment. But the fact that I wasn't just stomping them out in front of everybody was, you know, my peers were like, Oh, you're soft on them, and you're a boot lover, and all this other stuff. I'm like, I'm just they're men like we're men, you know.

SPEAKER_06 31:04

What a fucking funny ass insult to call you a boot lover. That's fantastic. Yeah, it's now again, I'm a toe gunner, so I my mentality is completely different as far as the way things worked, right? The way I I I learned in a cat platoon first, and then whatever we did in Ramadia's mobile assault company. Uh but my understanding, man, as far as mortars go, and I I see it now. I I share stupid fucking Instagram videos and and Facebook videos to Blake all the time of people on the gun line doing dumb shit, nearly killing each other, right? Dudes loading rounds backwards and shit like that, where sort of that instant you gotta be on somebody's ass or everybody on the gun line dies is probably really vital and important. So I can see why the culture's that way. Yeah, but I'll tell you from the outside, it looks crazy. It looks like you guys are just beating each other to death.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah, I mean, that's it's kind of how it was. Uh and again, it's absolutely essential on the gun line. You know, someone's about to you know, double load or something, you know, misfire, someone's about to drop an, you know, you grab them and you know, you get put them on the ground or snatch somebody up or get in their face. That's life and death. But, you know, because your rack wasn't made right, or you know, because you missed like a little spot on your chin when you shaved, like, why do I have to be up in your face? Yeah, screaming at you, you know, like I that didn't make sense to me when I because I started off doing that. Um, we had got up a tin sergeant that was a drill instructor, and I just became like in the zone for corporal, and he would his favorite thing to do was when someone would mess up, he'd be like, Wallace, go get him. And then here I come, knife hand yelling, you know, and all the staff NCOs and everybody's like, Yeah, Wallace, get him, and they're all loving it. But what what am I doing for that Marine? Like, what am I teaching him in that moment?

SPEAKER_06 33:18

Right, you know, just to hate you, probably.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Yeah, yeah. And um it it got to a point where uh they started sending me problem marines from other platoons. Uh, they'd be like, This Marine has an attitude, he doesn't want to listen to anybody, he just doesn't want to get with the program. They started calling me by the book, Bob. You know, Sergeant Balls does everything right, you know, he'll get him straightened out. The guy shows up and he had the same problem that I had, you know. He's got people that he doesn't respect telling him what to do.

SPEAKER_05 33:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

And me, instead of treating him like a piece of crap that everyone's telling me he is, I'm like, look, I'm gonna give you the opportunity to show me what kind of marine you are. This is all on you. I don't care how you were over here or how you were over there. You do what I need you to do, we'll be all good. And I never had a problem with any of the problem Marines because I talk to them like men and I'm not just in their face calling them stupid and you piece of shit, motherfucker, and all those other things. That to me, I don't respond well to that. So it didn't make sense for me to be doing that as a as a leader either.

SPEAKER_06 34:35

It it probably yeah, for sure. Yeah, it probably has a lot to do, and I again I don't know, I don't know how you're raised or what what you came up with, but I imagine that is that that's a formative experience, probably you had early in your childhood, and you know that that you don't respond well to that. So why the fuck would you do that to anybody else who you were yeah, I mean, you're not their parent, but you are like you're raising them in a way in a culture.

SPEAKER_04 35:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:03

Well, kind of rounding this out, man. Uh you sound like you had a long career. Did you make staff NCO or no?

SPEAKER_00 35:12

No, I got out uh after eight years. They had uh they had offered me um, we were just about to go back to Afghanistan, and uh I was in the zone, and they're like, we'll give you stamp sergeant and give you your platoon, then we're gonna go right back to

Turning Down Rank For Family

SPEAKER_00 35:31

where we just came from in Afghanistan. And at the time I was married, and my wife at the time was like, you know, we're tired of you being gone all the time. These issues that you're having coming back from these combat deployments are causing a lot of problems. You know, we don't want you to continue doing this. So I made the choice to get out instead.

SPEAKER_06 35:54

You had a couple of young kids too, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Uh at the time, yeah. They were uh five and three, and then one on the way.

SPEAKER_06 36:04

Yeah, those are hard years. It's hard years to to be gone too. Those are, I mean, they're not, you know, you can't turn back time.

SPEAKER_05 36:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 36:15

Well, specific specifically looking back on Ramadi, and it may be hard for you to kind of parse it out, but what do you tell people? Uh what do you tell people about 2004? And then I guess in a broader sense, what do you tell people about your services?

SPEAKER_00 36:32

What does it mean to you? What I tell people about 2004 is um whatever innocence I had

Pride Shame And Innocence Lost

SPEAKER_00 36:43

was killed over there. Um I would never want anybody's 18-year-old child to go through what we went through, um, even though mine is potentially gonna be doing the same thing. He'll be 20, but still, he's still young. Um but I went from feeling a sense of pride and accomplishment to now it's a mixture of shame and regret, just because with everything that's happened since then, um, it really just seems more than senseless. And just all the loss on our side and the innocents. Um, the innocent people uh also is something that bugs me on a you know pretty consistent basis. You know, just those who were caught in the crossfire or, you know, bad intel type stuff.

SPEAKER_06 37:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Um yeah, when I tell people about my service, because I I get when people find out, you know, they always do the thank you for your service. It's a mixture of pride and shame because uh, you know, obviously being a Marine is you know, there's nothing better. Um but I don't feel the same way about the things that I did. And also I'm at a point now in my life where I can say, um, I never really fit in as a Marine in the Marine Corps. I never I always felt that I was kind of like around badass dudes that were doing badass stuff, and then I was just kind of there.

SPEAKER_04 38:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

You know, I never really felt like I belonged.

SPEAKER_06 38:39

So that's uh it's a good way to remember it, man. I it's a lot to swallow all at once, and uh again, I'm I'm I'm recalling now 20 years of interactions with you peripherally. Uh I think you and I have been in the same place a few times, actually, as far as like the way you think about things, right? You want to distance yourself, you almost want to distance yourself from service in a way, yeah. But at the same time, I we haven't talked in 22 years, and I'm real fucking glad to see you, to be honest. And I'm really glad we're having this conversation. It actually made it's making me happy, right? And there wouldn't be any other way to do that outside of this weird trauma bond that we have. So I don't know, man. That's good. You wrapped it up well.

Trauma Bond And Telling The Story

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Well, I'm glad uh I don't I don't really talk to anybody about any of this stuff. So when you sent me that message, uh, like I said, I've come across excerpts from the podcast from time to time. And uh there's always been a part of me that was just wonder like what would I say if anybody ever asked me to you know share my perspective on it. So I'm happy to be able to contribute in some small way.

SPEAKER_06 40:07

It's more than small. You and I've I've I don't know if I've said this to enough people, actually. Uh what we mean Blake had no idea what the fuck we were doing. We thought of this last summer. We were like, we're just gonna do this and see what happens because nobody's really told weapons company's story. Uh it it paints a brush stroke on a broader canvas more than you realize. Your perspective, especially being 18, and uh literally you joined boot camp in July. Uh, you know, uh the invasion of Iraq was already six months underway, or whatever, there's four months underway by the time you went to boot camp. Like that's a that's a unique time frame and a unique experience in an extremely hard and difficult deployment where, again, there was literally there was a weapons company platoon in contact every single day, essentially, one way or another, either via an IED or gunfights. And you know, you talked about Aldredy, but I'm sure you knew other people in other platoons as well. You knew who was getting shot at, you knew who was getting blown up. You you saw them. It was it was a real face, it wasn't just a face like, oh, I heard about this other platoon, this uh this other camp or whatever. It was somebody you knew. I don't know, it does something weird to you, so it's different.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

It does because it's it's familiar and it's hidden you where you live at. Yeah, there's a lot of people in this world that don't that aren't affected by things that don't affect them directly, right? And it's different when something you know happens inside your your bubble of existence because we're all connected in that way, and you know, especially in the also the close, the close proximity, but um yeah, because it's like a part of you is also you know getting attacked because that person is an extension of you, your you know, your feelings and the bond that you have with them.

SPEAKER_06 42:15

Right. Well, it's been great. Is there anything else you want to anything else you want to close with, man? I don't I don't know where else to go from here.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

No, I just want to say it's great to see you both. Um you know, uh, even though our experiences and interactions throughout the years have been limited, uh, you know, they've they've always been great for me um on both sides, both you and Blake. Um, Blake being my more direct senior in the platoon, you know, I always looked up to him. I always thought he was too smart to be in the infantry.

SPEAKER_06 42:49

Um it's the glasses, it's a joke.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Yeah. I used to wear glasses too, so you know, it's we gotta stick together, but uh yeah, no, it's just uh it's good to to reconnect and you know be able to talk about some things and also hear that I'm not the only one that feels the way I do about certain stuff.

SPEAKER_03 43:11

Yeah, that's definitely true, though.

SPEAKER_06 43:13

Not not even close. I I'm not trying to pump the podcast in any way. If uh it may bring up some bad memories, so either don't listen to it if you don't want to. But if you if you feel like you're in the right head space, take a listen. You'll uh you'll hear a lot of the same sentiments, man. You're not you're definitely not alone. Not even close. Not at all.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

Well, that's uh that's good to know. It's been a struggle, but uh I'm keeping the head above water, and you know, I don't feel like I'm drowning, so it's good.

SPEAKER_02 43:47

One day at a time, man. Yep. So glad to see you, glad you're here.

SPEAKER_06 43:51

I'll I'll probably cut this part, but uh if if whether you listen or not, I'll tell you officer, staff, uh, seniors, everyone said the same thing. Uh everyone's had a hard time, dude. Uh I don't think we've we're on like 50, I think, 50 interviews now.

SPEAKER_04 44:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 44:11

Well that's a third of the company, including senior officers. Uh no one came away unscathed. No one walked away and was like, I just feel good about everything. I'm fine. Not even fucking close. Now some people had some real uh we've had some people had some real big problems. And uh yeah, yeah. Some some are doing okay, some aren't.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Yeah, yeah, there's been a lot of stuff that's happened in between getting out and up until now, but I figure we'll we'd keep it subject specific.

SPEAKER_06 44:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. No, and that yeah, I'm not trying to put all your personal business on the on the laundry line either. That's not a good thing for anybody.

SPEAKER_01 44:53

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